Happy summer! Or as my husband might say, "Nice spring we're having this summer, eh?" No complaints, here.
I come to you this late June to (finally) bring you news of our outdoor home improvement projects! They have been completed for several weeks, now, but you know how it goes with me and this blog thing lately... Actually, I was just waiting a bit, so I could get pictures of the projects after they'd had some time to become more established. ; )
So, without further ado, I'll let the pictures (mostly) tell the story:
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| Bryant did a ton of research about gardening, and as a result, we decided to try the Back to Eden method. This involved starting with laying down a weed barrier (we opted for free cardboard). |
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| This pile sat for a little while, patiently waiting for the next layer to arrive... |
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| The weed barrier is covered with wood chips! It was important to get these when the leaves were still green, so there was both green and brown matter. We found a tree company that had to pay to dump their chips elsewhere, so they were happy to bring them to our house for free...and we were glad to get so many for free! The only downside was the fact that they had to be hauled to the back yard manually. |
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| Pictures don't really do the space and amount of work involved justice... |
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| ...but hopefully you get the idea. |
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| It took a second load of wood chips to cover the rest of the area, and even then, there was still some uncovered grass left in the plot we'd planned. |
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All done, for now!
We let this sit for almost a full year to let the cardboard and leaves break down and start enriching the soil (mostly clay, in our case) below it. |
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| This spring, we had old railroad ties delivered, and Bryant hauled those to the back, dug out trenches for them, and put up the (very necessary) deer fence. |
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| Ready to plant! |
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| We didn't use the entire space this year - decided to start somewhat small. |
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Less than a month later!
Don't mind the grass/weeds. We weren't able to get the railroad ties in before the cardboard/chips to prevent weeds from coming in from the sides, but we've been able to keep them pretty far from our plants and will get them cleared out for good before next season.
Check out those plants, though! Everything is really doing well, despite a hot/dry start for them. |
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| We've got a pretty great supervisor. ☺ |
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Our first big harvest! There's a cucumber in there somewhere. Prior to this, we'd picked one cucumber and one zucchini.
The tomato plants are loaded with blooms and some fruit, already, and the potatoes look great, too! |
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| I didn't get an intentional "before" picture, but found this one from last year after the step was finished. The landscaping timbers were placed shortly thereafter. Then, the baby came 3+ weeks early, so the front landscaping project was officially put on hold. No one told the gladioli and weeds, though, so they just kept filling in the bed. |
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| What you can't see is the many man hours and loads of elbow grease my awesome hubby put into clearing out this spot. There were so many weeds and debris, in addition to a large pail full of gladiolus bulbs. This picture was taken at dusk after we'd gotten all our plants in the ground and watered. Shout out and huge thanks to my mom for letting us use her greenhouse discount and finding/asking people for plant/design ideas! |
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| We had some cardboard left from the garden, so put it down between plants as a weed/gladiolus barrier, and I'm so glad we did! It didn't cover everything, but sure made a difference. |
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| This is the last of an almost-ten-cubic-yard pile of wood chips. We used what we needed as mulch out front and took the rest to the garden! |
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Added a second tier of timbers and were good to go.
This was a long time coming, and we are so, so glad to have it done! |
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| Almost a month later and everything is still alive and filling in nicely! |
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This guy likes to watch me pull weeds...and help himself to pieces of grass... ☺
It's amazing to me how many weeds and gladioli continue to find their way to the surface. |
These projects have been hard work, but have also been a nice change of pace and somewhat enjoyable, mostly because we get to continue to see the literal fruits of our labor.
As always, thanks for your interest and support! Let us know if you have any questions...or need any cilantro! ; )
With a green thumb,
Kensy
Favorites of the day:
garden-fresh pesto!
quality time with family and friends
these two hard workers:
